


I Only Belong to Me

by KlingonEtiquette



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Fallen Angel, Introspection, No Dialogue, The Fall - Freeform, Very little dialogue, crowley is/was raphael, music inspired, newly fallen crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-05-19 16:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19360687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KlingonEtiquette/pseuds/KlingonEtiquette
Summary: But there are no stars, at least none that Raphael—no, Not-Raphael—can see. And he misses the stars. He remembers walking through them only a few nights ago, wandering between the vibrant red giants and the dying white dwarfs. He remembers losing himself for hours in those stars, safe and warm and surrounded. He can't bear the thought of a starless existence.--[Otherwise known as: I listened to "Ich gehör' nur mir" on instant replay and wrote a thing.]





	I Only Belong to Me

At the end of the Fall, there is only silence. Silence and then the pitiful sound of things that used to be Angels dragging themselves to their feet, cradling broken wings, cradling each other, and crying. Some stay where they landed, too dazed and disoriented even to blink. Others tend to their wounds with tears glistening on their cheeks. Among them, the creature that used to be known as the Archangel Raphael gathers his courage and stands. He feels the ground shift underneath his feet, as uncertain as the future he faces. With a shuddering sigh, he passes his hand over the broken junction where wing meets back. He means to do what he always does. He means to heal. 

He fails.

Such a simple, practiced, familiar miracle. It should work. It always works. But this time it fails. For a moment, Not-Raphael stands still, dumbfounded. And then he crumples under a flood of humiliation. If he isn't a healer anymore, then what does that make him? Something lesser, certainly, and perhaps even something vile. In the moonlight, he sees the skin on his hands shimmer like the scales of some great, terrible serpent. 

 _What am I?_ he wonders. 

Nothing good. Not anymore. He feels lowly, vile, disgusting, disgraced.  _Unforgivable_. And what's worse—there are others here, other Angels, all disgraced and disgusting and  _broken_. And he can't do a single thing about it. He can't heal them. He can't tell them it's going to be all right, that She will welcome them back tomorrow, because he knows it won't be. She won't be welcoming them home, not now, not ever. They don't  _have_ a home.

He wants to scream, but at whom? God? God isn't here. At Lucifer? Yes, yes, he can scream at Lucifer. It's Lucifer's fault that they're all here, lost, alone even in their numbers, Fallen, and miserable. It's Lucifer's doing. It's his responsibility to set things right. They can talk this out like civilized beings, former Archangel to former Archangel, and they can fix it. Or he can scream and rage and curse Lucifer into the deepest pits of this new place they're supposed to call Hell. This place they're supposed to call home. It's Lucifer's fault that this is home. 

But No-Longer-Raphael knows better than to do that. If it's Lucifer's fault, then Lucifer holds all the power here beneath the Earth. He made them fall; he can make them suffer. There's an eternity for that. 

So Not-Raphael looks toward the sky. It isn't Earth's sky, which is blue and filled with fluffy white clouds. No, this is Hell's sky, red as blood and overcast with dark, dark grey. In its own way, it  _is_ beautiful. But there are no stars, at least none that Raphael—no,  _Not_ -Raphael—can see. And he  _misses_ the stars. He remembers walking through them only a few nights ago, wandering between the vibrant red giants and the dying white dwarfs. He remembers losing himself for hours in those stars, safe and warm and surrounded. He can't bear the thought of a starless existence. 

 _There's a way back to them_ , he thinks.  _I'll find it. One day, I'll find the way back._

It might be foolish to hope. It might be pointless. It might be all kinds of things, but it's all he's got left. No... He has one more thing. He has  _himself_. God has cast him out. She's taken everything from him, made him this lowly, desolate creature and left him to wander the circles of Hell as he wandered the stars. She's broken his wings, too, though indirectly, and left him in agony. She's done it to the others, as well. Broken them all like sticks. 

His name, too.  _Raphael_ doesn't suit him. Raphael was an Angel, a healer. Raphael belonged to Heaven; perhaps he will  _always_ belong to Heaven. This is a place seething with anger and hatred and bitterness, a place where wounds fester and bleed without hope of healing. Raphael cannot exist here. Raphael walks among the stars, sings to the birds that perch on his outstretched hand, and  _loves_ the universe with his entire heart. Whatever he is now, he doesn't deserve to be called Raphael. No, he doesn't  _want_ to be called Raphael. 

 _Crawley,_ he thinks. It suits him. That's what he is, isn't it? A crawling  _thing_. Raphael strides among the stars and Crawley stalks the bloodstained ground beneath the Earth. 

 _I don't belong to Heaven,_ he decides. He doesn't belong to Hell, either. He belongs to himself. Whatever this existence is, it's  _his_. He will not be a puppet, dragged around on strings, made to obey and follow without question. Pathetic and alone as he is now, he will find his way to be loved again. He will find his way to the safety of a warm embrace, no matter how long it takes, no matter how much he has to fight. Fighting, Crawley thinks, is better than giving up. 

Shivering with a sudden rush of cold, he turns away from the starless sky. Whoever or whatever Crawley is, he knows one thing for certain. He won't be anyone's pawn. 

 _I don't belong to anyone,_ he thinks again, as if to remind himself.  _Only to me._

After so many years just existing, he's finally ready to learn what it means to live. 


End file.
